New Year's Eve (17 page)

Matt checked out his reflection in the black mirrored walls. His face looked as rotten as he felt. To a face like this, you might say, “Having a pleasant funeral?” or “Enjoying your depression?” but you would not say “Happy New Year.”

Molly chirped, “Hi there, Matthew! Long time no see! Happy New Year!”

Matt grunted. He saw the dress she was wearing, but he didn't believe his eyes, so he didn't worry about it.

Christopher said cheerily, “So how've you been, Emily?”

Matt stiffened.

Last summer there had been a strange little incident with Christopher. He had believed Emily's version. Now he thought: so why doesn't she want to get married? She wants to play the field maybe? Try Christopher out again? Christopher kissed Emily once; I saw them together.

“Hi there, Em,” said Molly gaily, as if she and Emily were the best of friends. “Where've you been? Half the night's gone and you're just showing up.” Molly and Christopher had to pull their stomachs in and flatten against the wall so the confetti bags could pass.

“We've been—” Emily paused to think of an explanation, “—downstairs having our own party,” she said finally.

“Oooh, pretty neat,” Molly said, winking at Matt.

Christopher was staring hopefully at Emily.

Emily smiled in a meaningless party manners way. “Christopher, may your New Year be the best ever.”

Christopher cried, “Oh, and yours, too, Emily! The best!”

She does love me, Matt thought, listening to them gush. It's just that she wants to love a few other guys as well. May Christopher's New Year be the best ever? What about mine? Would she like me to have a shabby fourth-rate unmarried New Year?

The ring lay heavily in his breast pocket.

The porters managed to squeeze through the entrance and staggered on into the dancing crowd.

Mike Robinson, his face a thunderstorm, shoved past without even seeing the confetti. He stomped around the corner, hit the down button of the elevator with enough force to break his finger off, and glared at the wall.

“A good New Year's Eve all around,” Matt muttered.

Emily glanced back at Mike. “Now, Matt. He was mean to Kip all year round anyhow. It's good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“Is that how you feel about me?” Matt said.

“No! No, no, no, no, no!
I love you.
”

Oh right, he thought. Sure. He let Emily drag him on into the ballroom. “Busy evening,” he observed. “I see Anne dancing with Con again. I see Lee wrapped around the legs by Kip's little brothers.”

“Kip's little brothers?
Here
? I don't believe you.” Emily advanced into the lovely twinkling sky of a room. The tiny lights flickered and the dancers swayed and the snow fell outside. “Beth!” Emily cried. “Beth, how are you, how's the party, how's George, are you having a great time, what are Kip's little brothers doing here?”

The girls hugged, admired each other's gown and flowers, and Matt had to shake hands with George, whom he did not know. Did not want to know. Could not possibly make conversation with.

“Ooooh, Em, it's been such a crazy evening!” Beth Rose gushed. “Where have you been? We've missed you—you missed all the action!”

Matt took a few dinosaur balloons from Beth Rose's weird bouquet and pulled them down by his face. A predator as vicious as Tyrannosaurus rex ought to protect Matt from any nosey questions.

Beth Rose gave Emily a quick summary of the evening. “George and I have had a great time; I'm friends with Gwynnie now, she's really neat, you're going to like her; Mike has just abandoned Kip; Kip hasn't decided whether to forgive her brothers, because Kip's too busy kissing Lee; and Con is dancing with Anne, and they haven't been apart for a millisecond since.”

“Goodness!” Emily said.

Beth Rose rattled on, giving the details, not knowing the big event (or non-event) had happened between Emily and Matt in the lobby. Not knowing a tiny hard ring was pressing against Matt's heart instead of on Emily's finger.

George played puppets with the dinosaurs: pulling strings to make the tyrannosaurus dance with the stegosaurus. Matt waited for the longest evening of his life to end.

Molly was making a phone call.

“My name?” she said. “This is an anonymous phone call, officer. I don't want to lose any friends tonight.”

Molly smiled viciously. “Drugs,” she said softly. “These girls have their purses full and they're going to sell enough for everybody to celebrate midnight stoned.”

T
HE TRUMPET WAILED A
thin jazzy mournful song, as if the old year hurt.

Midnight was moments away.

Screaming and laughter reached a fever pitch.

They were celebrating. But like all New Years, nobody really knew why. Were they proud of the year gone by? Excited about the year to come? Or did they just feel like screaming, and tonight it was sanctioned?

If they made enough noise, perhaps they would not care that last year had hurt, and this year might hurt more.

Boys who disliked dancing stationed themselves beneath the clock and were bellowing a countdown. Girls who wanted to dance anyhow were dancing on their own amidst the couples. There was a wild fever among the dancers, as if they had to get it all in before midnight; as if, like Cinderella, their dance might end forever when the clock chimed.

Gary's nickel dropped from his hand and rolled beneath dancing feet.

He watched it vanish. Oh well, he thought, I probably had about the same chance of dating both Gwynnie and Beth Rose.

When Gwynnie lost interest in baby-sitting he danced with her. “You put your wig back on.”

“Had to. Nobody recognized me during resolutions. A person has a duty to her public.”

Anne and Con had not talked. It was safer that way. What you didn't admit, you didn't have to act on. There was such intense satisfaction in touching again: taking in every scent and motion and sound of the other. Her elegant black dress became full of static, and clung to his legs. He kissed her continually: on the lips, and throat, and hair, and eyelids. Anne could have held Con forever.

The ghastly scene with Molly had been so short, and Molly had vanished too quickly (in fact, Anne's purse had swayed in the wind of Molly's departure) that the nightmare had already receded.

Molly is right, of course, Anne Stephens thought. And yet I don't care.

They danced. She felt like Sleeping Beauty, in a trance in his arms.

After a long, long time, Anne said, “What about Jade?”

There was another long, long time in which they swayed. Kissed. Touched. “There is no Jade,” Con said finally. “I made her up. I wanted you to be jealous. You told me I was too immature for you, and you started dating Lee, who has probably been mature since first grade, and going off on college weekends, and I was so mad at you, and I wanted there to be some sophisticated person I could date, too, so I made Jade up.”

Another girl might have been absolutely furious.

Anne had never felt so complimented. “How did you come up with such a perfect name? I was green with jealousy just thinking of her.”

“You were?” Con said. “You could at least have shown it, Anne. I thought you hardly noticed.”

“How many times did I go visit Lee?” she pointed out.

“More times than I wanted you to,” Con said. “I had bought you a pretty jade pendant for your gold chain. I was going to give it to you the very night you told me I was so immature you couldn't stand me any longer. I went home and threw it against the wall but it didn't break. So I stomped on it but it only chipped. I figured anything that tough deserved to live. So I gave my fake girlfriend the name Jade.”

Which of us is truly immature? Anne thought. Con with his jealousy and fake girlfriend? Or me with my fatal desire for a guy I know is totally unreliable? Fatal. A word for soap operas and bad books. It had not been fatal, though. They hadn't died of love. Not yet. She said, “Do you still have the necklace?”

“Sure. You want it?”

She nodded.

“You gotta break up with Lee in order to get it,” Con warned her.

They both actually remembered Lee at that moment and jumped. Anne had been in Con's arms almost an hour: silently swaying, caught in her sexual and emotional feeling for him. They scanned the ballroom.

They spotted Kip first, her peach-rose bloom of a dress a warm spot in the room, dancing with her little brother Kevin. A few feet away, the other brother Pete was eating a mountain of hors d'oeuvres. And Lee?

Lee was sitting on the sofa, with Jamie asleep against his shoulder.

“He's had a kid since we talked to him last,” Con observed.

She laughed. “So have we, Conrad Winter.”

They looked at each other without pretending. “I know. I wouldn't let you talk about it,” Con said. “I couldn't stand it. But I'm ready now. I've aged a lot, Anne. Kind of like wine. I'm much better now. You're going to like me.”

“I've fallen for that line before,” she said. Just like she was falling for it now. And she knew now what happened during falls: you scraped a knee, got bruises, cracked your elbow.

But it wasn't fatal.

She said, “Come on, let's go talk to Lee.”

“
Talk to Lee
?” Con gasped. He could think of nothing more horrible.

“He doesn't care,” Anne said. “But we have to settle it. I'm not going to be totally rotten.” She grinned at the boy she loved. “Just a little bit rotten.”

Con was not sure about Lee not caring. Lee had struck him as quite caring. Lee was that kind of person: responsible, solid, clean, trustworthy, and caring.

“And he's in love,” Anne reminded him, “with Kip.”

Christopher caught up to Molly.

“What was that phone call?” he hissed.

She giggled. “A game I'm playing.”

“What game?”

“You'll see.”

“Molly, what were you talking to the police for?”

“Chrissie, don't be afraid. They won't be after you.”

“Who will they be after?”

Molly tweaked his nose. “Nobody that matters.” She bent her head forward and nodded vigorously, so that her hair brushed back and forth over his face. Then she laughed.

“Molly!” he said, taking her by the shoulders. “Molly, what are you up to?”

“What's it to you?” she said, getting annoyed. “You're not as much fun as I thought you'd be, Chrissie. Now lay off. It's no big deal, it's just something I felt like doing.”

“No big deal? And it involves the police?”

“Chrissie, let go of me.”

“Not until you tell me what that phone call was about.”

“Christopher, you squeeze my arm any harder, you're going to bruise it.”

“Molly, you tell me what that last sentence to the police meant, or I'll bruise a lot more than your arm.”

“Don't threaten me, Christopher. I can ruin you, too.”

“Ruin?” said Christopher. “Just who are you planning to ruin tonight, Molly?”

George said, “Beth?”

His cheeks were scarlet. He's embarrassed, Beth Rose thought. I was embarrassed the first time I kissed Gary, too. But then it was dark, and nobody could see me blushing. She said, “Don't worry. Nobody was looking. They're too busy screaming.”

“Beth, you're forgetting that for some unknown reason my little brothers are here. They were looking. They're coming right now. Advancing like a little army. Here they are. They're attacking.”

A moment ago they had been close enough for love: now Kevin and Pete stood between them. Kevin looked up into George's face and Pete looked up into Beth's.

George said to Beth, “It could be worse. Jamie could be here, too.”

Beth said, “So, guys. How were we? Do we get a passing grade?”

George was insulted. “Passing?” he demanded. “Are you telling me that I only got a D on that kiss?”

“Passing could also be a C, B, or A,” Beth pointed out.

She and George were laughing. With Gary, she had always been on the defensive; having to be as good as the girls who came before her, struggling to be good enough so that no girl would come after her. But with George she was just happy.

I don't know him, she thought. And I don't love him. This isn't like Gary, where I fell so completely in love in one hour that I was on another planet. I think I lost weight just looking at Gary that first night, it was so exhausting to fall in love at first sight. But George I just like.

Kevin and Pete said, “But people were
watching
, they all
saw
you, they
know
.”

“What do they know?” Beth Rose asked, interested in how two others in the family would assess George.

But Kevin and Pete were too embarrassed to continue. They shuffled and swallowed and giggled—and left.

George did a good bit of shuffling and swallowing himself.

Then he said, “Uh, Beth?”

“Yes?”

She felt like an older woman. It was such a neat feeling. The terrible nerves and vulnerability were gone, and in their place—confidence.

George couldn't seem to continue.

Beth Rose decided to continue for them. She said, “It's been fun, hasn't it? And we still have Gwynnie's party to go to. And after that?”

George mumbled, “School starts day after tomorrow.”

“So it does,” she agreed. “But there are weekends.”

She had the most wonderful thought. If George did not actually manage to ask her out for the weekend, she would not really be hurt. Because if he didn't ask her out, it was his loss.

Oh, confidence! Beth Rose thought. I love confidence as much as I love boys. A person can sail a lot longer on confidence than on love at first sight.

George said, “Um. Lee. Um. Asked. Um. Kip. Um. To. Um—”